BAGEL RISING

The made-from-scratch bagels at BAGEL RISING are the backbone to a breakfast of champions — hung-over Beruit champions roaming Allston blocks like zombies after a night of heavy drinking, that is. But the beauty of Bagel Rising lies in the options for dressing your bagel — select a breakfast sandwich by its alluring name (like the Tequila Sunrise, a variant of their $3 egg sandwich staple, the Sunrise) and choose your bagel flavor from such options as sun-dried tomato, marble, and honey-wheat. Finally, pick a specialty cheese like Havarti and your greasy meat of choice. If you like your bagels dressed-down, they sell a range of spreads made from either cream cheese or tofu. And the Bagel Rising morning-after treatment is served up by the only sort of people you'd ever want to look in the eye while tasting last night's excesses in a burp — friendly young staffers you may recognize from that party, but who managed to drag their asses to work by 7 am to feed your sloppy self the most delicious boiled bread in town. Be sure to come early on weekends, though — they've got an OUT OF BAGELS sign that occasionally winds up in the front window.